Secondly, I'm using the words "powergamer" and "roleplayer" as ways to describe two ways of playing - one where the player knows the game well and knows that they should put all their points into characteristics, and a second that does not know the game as well, and is not planning ahead as well (and doesn't know that they should put their points into characteristics).

I think this "definition" is the core of the issue, and it's misleading. What you're saying is "power gamers" know the game, and "role-players" are just ignorant (in the best sense of the word). But it seems like a really small deal. Unless you're making a "character for life" it's easy to do it right the next time. And if you are making a character for a very long running campaign, then the GM should be flexible enough to either let you re-stat the character once you understand the concepts, or allow you to create a new character with the same XP as the old.

It's like any other game. Are you going to change the rules for Monopoly or Risk because there's a new player who doesn't know what's going on?

I'd like to start by saying that this topic would bear *much* more weight if you had identified an issue in play, and then came to discuss solutions (general or specific) for an issue of balance that had actually demonstrated to exist . This type of proposal came up tons during the EotE beta, but then no-one who was actually playing the game actually seemed care . Frankly that, should be telling.

Good point, I'm bringing it up because it has happened at our table, where some players knew to upgrade their characteristics while others didn't. The players that didn't put their points into skills and are necessarily gimped at only two proficency dice for every skill in the long run. That means less triumphs and less probability of successes.

Add to that the math and we see that these characters are gimped in the early and late game, which seems unbalanced.

A game isn't unbalanced because players are not aware of how the system works, or they choose not to avail themselves of the optimum pathways in mechanical character development. A game is unbalanced when people who do know the rules follow them and are left with poorly crafted classes that simply don't stack up mechanically as compared to others, or they find ways to 'break' the system easily with no downsides to their options.

[All the maths]

I found the math you've presented here difficult to follow, especially since I'm not clear why you're comparing YY to GGG. I think this has to do with the fact that your math was produced by someone else. When I get home tonight, I'll produce the math that demonstrates my point and post it. Even within what you've written, the difference in the results is less than a success (2.25 - 1.66 = .6 successes) which is barely noticeable in practice. Additionally your "role player's" results are producing Triumphs (at an average rate of 1 per 6 rolls) which can be extremely valuable, albeit exceptionally difficult to quantify.

Sorry to confuse, I've just checked the math myself and it looks like I've missed something! Ability dice have 3 sides with 1 success and 1 side with two successes (not 4 with 1 success)

I've only referenced my friend as we're watching the thread to see other people's reactions to this proposed house rule and he did the math first.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expected_value

The expected value of a roll is the values of a roll multiplied by the probability of that roll happening, and adding up this for each possible roll.

Ability dice have 8 sides, 3 of which have 1 success, and 1 has 2 successes

E(Ability Die) = 1*1/8 + 1*1/8 + 1*1/8 + 2*1/8 + 0*1/8 + 0*1/8 + 0*1/8 + 0*1/8 = 5/8 = 0.625

Proficiency dice have 12 sides, 6 of which have 1 success, and 2 have 2 successes

E(Proficiency Die) = 1*1/12 + 1*1/12 + 1*1/12 + 1*1/12 + 1*1/12 + 1*1/12 + 2*1/12 + 2*1/12 + 0*1/12 + 0*1/12 + 0*1/12 + 0*1/12 = 10/12 = 0.8333

The reason I'm comparing YY with GGG is because a character that puts all his starting XP into characteristics will have 3 in 4 of the characteristics and thus will have GGG, and a character that puts all their starting XP into skills will have two skill points in the relevant skills, and only 2 in their characteristics, and thus will have YY

Assuming the former puts a free skill point in the relevant skills, it becomes comparing GGY with YY

GGY will lead an expected success of 0.625 + 0.625 + 0.8333 = 2.083333

While YY will have an expected success of 0.8333 + 0.8333 = 1.6666

So the character who upgraded characteristics at character gen will have a higher chance of success at first (and at the end because of higher characteristics).

Triumphs are 1/12 per each yellow die,

so GGY will have a chance of a triumph of 8.333%

YY will have a chance of triumph of 15.97222%

([1 minus the probability of getting no triumphs = probability of getting at least one triumph] = 1 - (11/12 * 11/12) = 0.1597222)

So while triumph probability are higher at first for the skill character, the characteristic character can upgrade skills to have 3 or 4 proficiency dice so that their chances of triumphs surpass those of the skill character.

I hope this helps! Let me know if there are more questions!

A game isn't unbalanced because players are not aware of how the system works, or they choose not to avail themselves of the optimum pathways in mechanical character development. A game is unbalanced when people who do know the rules follow them and are left with poorly crafted classes that simply don't stack up mechanically as compared to others, or they find ways to 'break' the system easily with no downsides to their options.

Good point, I agree, I was just thinking of Dungeons and Dragons, where someone who puts a few hours of time into the game can make game breaking characters, and that's not the case here in EotE. I'd argue that in EotE, its extremely balanced, and I really like it for that, I just realized the only point in the game that we can change to make it perfectly balanced is if someone doesn't put starting XP into characters, and I wanted to perfect that balance

[All the maths]

I found the math you've presented here difficult to follow, especially since I'm not clear why you're comparing YY to GGG. I think this has to do with the fact that your math was produced by someone else. When I get home tonight, I'll produce the math that demonstrates my point and post it. Even within what you've written, the difference in the results is less than a success (2.25 - 1.66 = .6 successes) which is barely noticeable in practice. Additionally your "role player's" results are producing Triumphs (at an average rate of 1 per 6 rolls) which can be extremely valuable, albeit exceptionally difficult to quantify.

Sorry to confuse, I've just checked the math myself and it looks like I've missed something! Ability dice have 3 sides with 1 success and 1 side with two succeses (not 4 with 1 success)

I've only referenced my friend as we're watching the thread to see other people's reactions to this proposed house rule and he did the math first.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expected_value

The expected value of a roll is the values of a roll multiplied by the probability of that roll happening, and adding up this for each possible roll.

Ability dice have 8 sides, 3 of which have 1 success, and 1 has 2 successes

E(Ability Die) = 1*1/8 + 1*1/8 + 1*1/8 + 2*1/8 + 0*1/8 + 0*1/8 + 0*1/8 + 0*1/8 = 5/8 = 0.625

Proficency dice have 12 sides, 6 of which have 1 success, and 2 have 2 successes

E(Proficnecy Die) = 1*1/12 + 1*1/12 + 1*1/12 + 1*1/12 + 1*1/12 + 1*1/12 + 2*1/12 + 2*1/12 + 0*1/12 + 0*1/12 + 0*1/12 + 0*1/12 = 10/12 = 0.8333

The reason I'm comparing YY with GGG is because a character that puts all his starting XP into characteristics will have 3 in 4 of the characteristics and thus will have GGG, and a character that puts all their starting XP into skills will have two skill points in the relevant skills, and only 2 in their characteristics, and thus will have YY

Assuming the former puts a free skill point in the relevant skills, it becomes comparing GGY with YY

GGY will lead an expected success of 0.625 + 0.625 + 0.8333 = 2.083333

While YY will have an expected success of 0.8333 + 0.8333 = 1.6666

So the character who upgraded characteristics at character gen will have a higher chance of success at first (and at the end because of higher characteristics).

Triumphs are 1/12 per each yellow die,

so GGY will have a chance of a triumph of 8.333%

YY will have a chance of triumph of 15.97222%

([1 minus the probability of getting no triumphs = probability of getting at least one triumph] = 1 - (11/12 * 11/12) = 0.1597222)

So while triumph probability are higher at first for the skill character, the characteristic character can upgrade skills to have 3 or 4 proficency dice so that their chances of triumphs surpass those of the skill character.

I hope this helps! Let me know if there are more questions!

Your doing the math wrong. And that is kind of why you are coming to wrong conclusions.

1. you need to compare like to like. IE if a person has 3 in a stat and 2 in a skill that will be YYG You need to include both skill and attribute.

In response to the math, first some preliminary notes:

1. It helps to see where the math is coming from, and relieves me of many assumptions re: why the pools were chosen.
2. I appreciate the link to the "Expected results" and if you're savvy enough to link to that, I'm further relieved that I can start using big words to discuss the math here.
3. I would recommend playing around with Monte Carlo methods to really start understanding the joint distributions for success, advantage, triumph, and despair results. You may be surprised at what you find, and it's what I'll use this evening to produce the results I'll post.
4. If you want the R code I'm using, I'm happy to share it on a limited basis.
5. Are you also including the Triumph as a success, cause the dice do work like that.

Now with all that pudu out of the way

I'm not sure that the direct comparison of a YY vs YGG results in a vacuum as generally representative of the issue is fair, but lets start there. Lets try to keep things as level as possible in this instance as possible, though, okay? Well say the pools are from the following sources:

• The role-playing (RP) pool is created based on 0 xp spent on attributes, 0 XP spent on the first skill rank, and 10 XP spent on a second skill rank
• The power-gamer (PG) pool is created based on 30 xp spent on attributes, and 0 XP spent on the first skill rank.

Lets express the difference between these two as: delta = E(PG) - E(RP)

and for each dimension we've discussed so far, we'd have:

• delta(XP) = -20
• delta(success) = 0.42
• delta(Triumph) = -1/12

Based on your math, above (I haven't checked it). So, the PG results are up < 1/2 a success at the expense of ~ 8% trium and 20 xp. To me, that seems pretty even, since there's a lot you can do with 20 xp at creation, but obviously YMMV. We also have to include advantages, but things are going to get really messy when we do because the three main outcome parameters (success, advantage, and triumph) are not conditionally independent, which makes things really messy.

We should also look at reasonable situations where there's been some advancement. I would propose YYGG for RP and YYYY for the PG, just to look at how the outcomes differ. This is what I'll be tossing into my simulations later unless I hear a better idea.

I'd like to start by saying that this topic would bear *much* more weight if you had identified an issue in play, and then came to discuss solutions (general or specific) for an issue of balance that had actually demonstrated to exist . This type of proposal came up tons during the EotE beta, but then no-one who was actually playing the game actually seemed care . Frankly that, should be telling.

Good point, I'm bringing it up because it has happened at our table, where some players knew to upgrade their characteristics while others didn't. The players that didn't put their points into skills and are necessarily gimped at only two proficency dice for every skill in the long run. That means less triumphs and less probability of successes.

Add to that the math and we see that these characters are gimped in the early and late game, which seems unbalanced.

A game isn't unbalanced because players are not aware of how the system works, or they choose not to avail themselves of the optimum pathways in mechanical character development. A game is unbalanced when people who do know the rules follow them and are left with poorly crafted classes that simply don't stack up mechanically as compared to others, or they find ways to 'break' the system easily with no downsides to their options.

I will toss in an opinion here that, while it's not a 'balance' issue, if there's a big discrepancy between characters created by experienced players and those created by players that are inexperienced or otherwise uninterested in optimizing characters, there can be a substantial impact on the 'fun' factor at the table.

In other words, it's favorable for a game's design to minimize how noticeable the power levels between characters are at creation.

Your doing the math wrong. And that is kind of why you are coming to wrong conclusions.

1. you need to compare like to like. IE if a person has 3 in a stat and 2 in a skill that will be YYG You need to include both skill and attribute.

Hmmmm, well I'm thinking of two human characters: A) one with 2,2,2,2,2,2 with skills and B) one with 3,3,3,3,2,2 with no skills

A) will have characteristics of 2, and in skills they want, they'll have two skill points in them. So the maximum of characteristic and skill is 2, so two dice and the minimum is 2, so two of them are upgraded to yellow.

B) will have characteristics of 3 for the important skills, and in skills they want, they'll have one free skill point in them. So the maximum of characteristic and skill is 3, so three dice and the minimum is 1, so one of them is upgraded.

This gets worse if a human goes 4,3,2,2,2,2 as they'll have 4 in their important characteristic, so that means 4 dice, with one upgraded, so that will be GGGY

(However here I would argue that that evens itself out as they aren't very good at their other skills)

A) has 1.666 expected successes per skill check

B) has 2.08333 expected successes per skill check

C) (the 4,3,2,2,2,2 character) will have 2.708333 successes for a small number of skill checks

But I think C balances itself out as they will be worse at other skills.

Your doing the math wrong. And that is kind of why you are coming to wrong conclusions.

Actually, as long as the inputs are alright (I still need to check that), his math is pretty legit, i.e. I agree with his methodology.

IMO, there is a bit of an issue to how broadly the conclusions are being applied, though.

I'm not sure that the direct comparison of a YY vs YGG results in a vacuum as generally representative of the issue is fair, but lets start there. Lets try to keep things as level as possible in this instance as possible, though, okay? Well say the pools are from the following sources:

• The role-playing (RP) pool is created based on 0 xp spent on attributes, 0 XP spent on the first skill rank, and 10 XP spent on a second skill rank
• The power-gamer (PG) pool is created based on 30 xp spent on attributes, and 0 XP spent on the first skill rank.

Lets express the difference between these two as: delta = E(PG) - E(RP)

and for each dimension we've discussed so far, we'd have:

• delta(XP) = -20
• delta(success) = 0.42
• delta(Triumph) = -1/12

Based on your math, above (I haven't checked it). So, the PG results are up < 1/2 a success at the expense of ~ 8% trium and 20 xp. To me, that seems pretty even, since there's a lot you can do with 20 xp at creation, but obviously YMMV.

I really like that approach! And yes, I personally am a MatLab fanatic, but going through the math would only help!

I would like to say, however, that I'd like to do this comparison at three time points - character creation, somewhere in the middle after 100+ XP, and the end game, as I feel like ceiling effects at the end are important - knowing that GGGYY (ExpectedValue=3.541666, Triumph%=16%) is the best your character can ever get can be kind of disheartening sitting next to someone with GYYYY (ExpectedValue=3.958333, Triumph% = 30%)

EDIT: Then again, that's not that big of a difference - maybe it's only psychological seeing all those yellow dice?

I'm not sure that the direct comparison of a YY vs YGG results in a vacuum as generally representative of the issue is fair, but lets start there. Lets try to keep things as level as possible in this instance as possible, though, okay? Well say the pools are from the following sources:

• The role-playing (RP) pool is created based on 0 xp spent on attributes, 0 XP spent on the first skill rank, and 10 XP spent on a second skill rank
• The power-gamer (PG) pool is created based on 30 xp spent on attributes, and 0 XP spent on the first skill rank.

Lets express the difference between these two as: delta = E(PG) - E(RP)

and for each dimension we've discussed so far, we'd have:

• delta(XP) = -20
• delta(success) = 0.42
• delta(Triumph) = -1/12

Also: I would want to point out how many skills you're helping:

Brawn affects 2 skills and 2 combat skills (as well as wound threshold and soak),

Agility affects 4 skills and 3 combat skills,

Intellect affects 4 skills and all 6 knowledge skills,

Cunning affects 5 skills,

Willpower affects 3 skills (as well as strain threshold)

Presence affects 3 skills,

Not including knowledge skills, that's an average of 26/6 = 4.333 or including knowledge skills 32/6 = 5.333. We should probably round up to include the effects on thresholds etc, so if you'd like, on average a characteristic affects 6 skills

So it really is

• delta(XP) = -20
• delta(success) = 0.42 * [range of 3 and 10] = range of 1.26 to 4.2 more successes
• delta(success) = 0.42 * [average of 4.333] = average of 1.82 more successes
• delta(triumph) = -1/12

So it's a bit more than that, between ~2 and 4 more successes for a single characteristic upgrade.

So as long as newbies can respec their character to take advantage of that, I'm happy with it. I liked the slowly upgrade to the XP at character creation idea, but one free characteristic respec would fill the gap I think

Frankly, at this point, I think you're really starting to overreach for your interpretations. There are implicit assumptions in what you're trying to do here that don't even begin to hold up, foremost among them being that checks for all skills are being made with equal frequency, are of equal import, and have equal interpretations.

That is f***ing wrong.

If you want to press that kind of line of interpretation, I'm out. I'm so out, and you're just going to be wrong about any kind of conclusion you're drawing.

That may seem to be a strong statement, but there is so much crap that gets produced when people (including scientists) start trying to pull stunts like this.

Thanks for the input!

What's wrong with power gaming? Assuming this is power gaming (and it's not) what's wrong with it? Some people have natural talents (higher attributes). Other people are more skilled at things (higher skills). That's life. This game reflects that variation between natural talent and training very well. Labeling buying up your attributes at character generation as power gaming, despite the fact that the book actually says DO THIS and then labeling skill buying as role playing (which it isn't btw) is just a way to prejudiced people against buying up attributes. It serves no real purpose.

Besides the guy who bought up his attributes ..... that power gamer ...... for all any of us know he's the better role player. Nothing about buying attributes has anything to do with ones ability to actually role play.

Secondly, I'm using the words "powergamer" and "roleplayer" as ways to describe two ways of playing - one where the player knows the game well and knows that they should put all their points into characteristics, and a second that does not know the game as well, and is not planning ahead as well (and doesn't know that they should put their points into characteristics).

So let me summarize the points being made against this idea:

1. The developers tell us to put points into attributes, so it's not powergaming at all. It's the only time, it's designed to work that way by FFG, and the next time you can do it is 75xp into a talent tree for dedication, so do it now. Serious roleplayers also put their starting XP into characteristics.

I don't mean to bring about the associations of munchkin-ing or min-maxing when you put your starting XP into characteristics, just that if you do, you know something that another player may not, until it's a few sessions in and too late to change their character.

All I want to do is help those players who didn't know this curcial bit of information.

For convention's sake, powergamer refers to the player that knew to put points into characteristics, and the roleplayer refers to the one who didn't.

"Some people have natural talents (higher attributes). Other people are more skilled at things (higher skills). That's life. This game reflects that variation between natural talent and training very well."

But a player who does not upgrade characteristics at character creation necessarily is worse off in the beginning (see math above), and at the end because the 2s in characteristic limit them to only two yellow proficiency dice throughout the game. So they are worse off, and this makes the game unbalanced against those that don't know to put XP into characteristics

So basically what you're saying is that you want to punish the "power gamer" for making smart choices and reward the "role player" for making poor choices.

As for your accusation that it makes the game unbalanced. That's simply no. That's not my opinion. That's a fact. It's a fact that has survived 3 separate playtest runs. These rules have been tested over and over again. If it were unbalanced in anyway we'd know by now.

The easy fix, tell the players up front to buy attributes over skills. Make sure they read the part of the book that says to do it. Make sure they understand that. You are basically trying to fix something because someone makes a bad choice. The rules shouldn't be rewritten just because someone makes an ill informed choice.

Frankly, at this point, I think you're really starting to overreach for your interpretations. There are implicit assumptions in what you're trying to do here that don't even begin to hold up, foremost among them being that checks for all skills are being made with equal frequency, are of equal import, and have equal interpretations.

That is f***ing wrong.

If you want to press that kind of line of interpretation, I'm out. I'm so out, and you're just going to be wrong about any kind of conclusion you're drawing.

That may seem to be a strong statement, but there is so much crap that gets produced when people (including scientists) start trying to pull stunts like this.

I didn't mean to evoke such a visceral response, what do you mean stunts like this? I would love to go through the math of it all. From my personal experience some GMs rely on a core set of skills and just ignore others, so I completely understand what you mean by not all skills being equal.

Is that solely on the GM? The players at my table come with suggestions for roles all the time.

So basically what you're saying is that you want to punish the "power gamer" for making smart choices and reward the "role player" for making poor choices.

As for your accusation that it makes the game unbalanced. That's simply no. That's not my opinion. That's a fact. It's a fact that has survived 3 separate playtest runs. These rules have been tested over and over again. If it were unbalanced in anyway we'd know by now.

The easy fix, tell the players up front to buy attributes over skills. Make sure they read the part of the book that says to do it. Make sure they understand that. You are basically trying to fix something because someone makes a bad choice. The rules shouldn't be rewritten just because someone makes an ill informed choice.

I don't mean to punish anyone - ideally, this change would balance characters so that no matter what you choose, there are no mistakes in character creation. Clearly from the math, from the developers, and from the entire community, a character meant for longer than a one or two-shot game should put at least some points into characteristics at character creation. I just mean to balance it so newbies and experts can join the same table and be evenly balanced, even if one knows more about the system than the other.

Yes, in some systems, if you know more about the system then you can make a better character. What I'm arguing is that with this change, we can remove that - we can put an expert and a novice together and the novice won't feel like they made a mistake. I think that would be absolutely ideal, and I think EotE is the closest any RPG system has come to that that I've seen.

So basically what you're saying is that you want to punish the "power gamer" for making smart choices and reward the "role player" for making poor choices.

As for your accusation that it makes the game unbalanced. That's simply no. That's not my opinion. That's a fact. It's a fact that has survived 3 separate playtest runs. These rules have been tested over and over again. If it were unbalanced in anyway we'd know by now.

The easy fix, tell the players up front to buy attributes over skills. Make sure they read the part of the book that says to do it. Make sure they understand that. You are basically trying to fix something because someone makes a bad choice. The rules shouldn't be rewritten just because someone makes an ill informed choice.

I don't mean to punish anyone - ideally, this change would balance characters so that no matter what you choose, there are no mistakes in character creation. Clearly from the math, from the developers, and from the entire community, a character meant for longer than a one or two-shot game should put at least some points into characteristics at character creation. I just mean to balance it so newbies and experts can join the same table and be evenly balanced, even if one knows more about the system than the other.

Yes, in some systems, if you know more about the system then you can make a better character. What I'm arguing is that with this change, we can remove that - we can put an expert and a novice together and the novice won't feel like they made a mistake. I think that would be absolutely ideal, and I think EotE is the closest any RPG system has come to that that I've seen.

I simply don't agree with the 'everyone is the same in all things' logic. That people who excel or are better need to be suppressed and that people who need to learn have no prodding to do so. There is in essence no need to learn rules, or better one self, when you can play a game, or engage in any endeavor frankly, and you're simply rewarded for metabolizing oxygen into CO2 and producing urine.

I simply don't agree with the 'everyone is the same in all things' logic. That people who excel or are better need to be suppressed and that people who need to learn have no prodding to do so. There is in essence no need to learn rules, or better one self, when you can play a game, or engage in any endeavor frankly, and you're simply rewarded for metabolizing oxygen into CO2 and producing urine.

I agree, everyone should learn the rules, and shouldn't just be "simply rewarded for metabolizing oxygen into CO2 and producing urine" hehehe , but players who know the system aren't suppressed with allowing a respec or to upgrade characteristics through a game as if you had done so during character creation. They aren't affected, they continue to put all of their XP into characteristics because that is the best option (see math above). For those that didn't, I think allowing them to fix their mistake is a good thing, we shouldn't punish new players because they didn't know how important characteristics were.

I need to correct a mistake you often made Jrodny

a brawn 2, melee 5 character will roll YYYG dice pool, not YYGGG

No, Brawn 2/Melee 5 characters will roll YYGGG for their skill. That's correct.

The rule is dice equal to the larger of the skill/attribute pair, upgrade # of times equal to the lower value.

Actually not sure where you're even getting YYYG, that would a 3 upgraded four times, or vice versa.

YG

YY

YYG

YYY

YYYG

2 base with 5 upgrades.

Obviously that isn't how it is done since forming skill checks starts with the larger number, but that is where he is getting it from.

The Dedication talent cost 25 xp, and not one XP more. Your argument here completely discounts the value of every other purchased talent, which is completely bogus. Many talents on the way to the Dedication talent freaking rock. You state that the value of talents are difficult to quantify, but here you seem to have no problem assigning them a value of 0.

You refer the process as a "drudge through 4 or more talents", In reality, it's frequently a gleeful romp.

I completely agree. Many "Character Concepts" are best realized through talents, not through abilities or skills.

In my current game, I'm playing a Human Infiltrator / Force Sensitive Emergent. My character concept has been evolving, but at this point I'd say he is the "Really, really, really hard to hit talky guy."

At character creation, I increased Brawn and Cunning to 3 and left the rest at 2. I could have spent more on abilities, but instead I picked up the Emergent spec and basic Sense power because they fit my character concept better. Two sessions in, I'm having a blast. I've upgraded Sense to the point that he rarely gets hit, and I'm working my way toward Dedication in Emergent so I can boost his Presence.

Uncanny Senses and Sleight of Mind have added blue dice to Perception and Stealth, and Frenzied Attack has made him quite dangerous with a Force Pike.

Talents are FUN and extremely valuable to character concept, and I say that having picked perhaps the LEAST efficient tree in terms of getting to Dedication. Infiltrator looks like a damned snake, and it will take me a long time to get to that second ability boost. But I can look forward to being even harder to hit with those ranks of Dodge and Defensive Stance, and to having a great strain threshold to boot!

I simply don't agree with the 'everyone is the same in all things' logic. That people who excel or are better need to be suppressed and that people who need to learn have no prodding to do so. There is in essence no need to learn rules, or better one self, when you can play a game, or engage in any endeavor frankly, and you're simply rewarded for metabolizing oxygen into CO2 and producing urine.

But players who know the system aren't suppressed with allowing a respec or to upgrade characteristics through a game as if you had done so during character creation. They aren't affected, they continue to put all of their XP into characteristics because that is the best option (see math above). For those that didn't, I think allowing them to fix their mistake is a good thing, we shouldn't punish new players because they didn't know how important characteristics were.

No you shouldn't punish, but your experienced players should be helping the inexperienced ones make better characters, or frankly they're not very good team players. If not them, the GM should be doing that, if the GM isn't assisting new players in being successful at concept and design, that's not a very good GM imo. The inexperienced should be soliciting advice, and if they choose not to, or ignore it, that's not a game design issue, that's timidity, conceit, or stupidity, none of which is the game's fault. If this is an issue at your table it isn't the game, it's the people seated around the table.

No you shouldn't punish, but your experienced players should be helping the inexperienced ones make better characters, or frankly they're not very good team players. If not them, the GM should be doing that, if the GM isn't assisting new players in being successful at concept and design, that's not a very good GM imo. The inexperienced should be soliciting advice, and if they choose not to, or ignore it, that's not a game design issue, that's timidity, conceit, or stupidity, none of which is the game's fault. If this is an issue at your table it isn't the game, it's the people seated around the table.

I agree completely, wouldn't this change be a change that helps to fix that gap in case your table is like the above? I don't understand the negative consequences of implementing this rule to upgrade characteristics throughout the game as if you had already done so during character creation (up to a max of 90xp or 100xp or 110xp based on your species). It just becomes a fourth failure backup in case the player, the other players, or the GM all don't help the player create their character.

Isn't anyone playing this game for the first time either someone who's read the book, with someone who hasread the book, aided by someone that has read the book, playing with others who have read the book or has his/her game run by a GM that has read the book?

I think the whole premise of this topic is bizar it is like allowing new basketball players to second dribble because the others already know they aren't allowed.

Additionally the people refered to as Roleplayers are the 'noobs' in this scenario? While actually roleplaying is the thing (in my experiencing) new players find hardest to do....

I don't mean to punish anyone - ideally, this change would balance characters so that no matter what you choose, there are no mistakes in character creation.

And yet you are punishing people. Basically the guy who knows the game. Also the only time mistakes are made during character creation is if the GM allows them. As the GM it's your job to say "hey I noticed you spent all your point in skills and didn't buy up you attributes. You do know you can only buy those during character creation, do you want to revise your sheet?"

Yes, in some systems, if you know more about the system then you can make a better character. What I'm arguing is that with this change, we can remove that - we can put an expert and a novice together and the novice won't feel like they made a mistake. I think that would be absolutely ideal, and I think EotE is the closest any RPG system has come to that that I've seen.

Ooooooooooooorrrrrr you know the expert and the GM help the novice to build a character. You are basically punishing the expert player for knowing how to build his character. Mistakes in character creation only happen if you allow novice players to create their characters in a vacuum. The players and the GM should be working together when building characters. If that isn't happening then changing the rules isn't going to make things better.

But your method basically means that the guy who knows the rules is being punished for having the audacity of knowing the rules.

It's also worth pointing out you've effectively defined power gaming as someone who knows the game. That's not what power gaming is about. You're not power gaming if you read and understand the rules.

I don't mean to punish anyone - ideally, this change would balance characters so that no matter what you choose, there are no mistakes in character creation.

And yet you are punishing people. Basically the guy who knows the game. Also the only time mistakes are made during character creation is if the GM allows them. As the GM it's your job to say "hey I noticed you spent all your point in skills and didn't buy up you attributes. You do know you can only buy those during character creation, do you want to revise your sheet?"

Yes, in some systems, if you know more about the system then you can make a better character. What I'm arguing is that with this change, we can remove that - we can put an expert and a novice together and the novice won't feel like they made a mistake. I think that would be absolutely ideal, and I think EotE is the closest any RPG system has come to that that I've seen.

Ooooooooooooorrrrrr you know the expert and the GM help the novice to build a character. You are basically punishing the expert player for knowing how to build his character. Mistakes in character creation only happen if you allow novice players to create their characters in a vacuum. The players and the GM should be working together when building characters. If that isn't happening then changing the rules isn't going to make things better.

But your method basically means that the guy who knows the rules is being punished for having the audacity of knowing the rules.

But - but - but - if someone creates a bad character then they are stuck with it? Isn't that punishment? If a player is asked if they want to put points into characteristics and they ignorantly say no, that they want to have skills, only to find out later that the math adds up against them, they should be punished with a weak character for it? An expert would understand what it's like to be in their shoes and allow them to respec/upgrade to character creation levels.

How is the expert punished? The expert is also given the ability to respec his character or upgrade characteristics up to character creation levels. The expert is punished for knowing the system in that he won't selfishly have a better character than others because the others won't screw up and make weaker characters? Isn't that selfish? The expert should want everyone to have equally powered characters.

I'm sorry for coming off strongly, I just want to make sure I understand the argument against it. I appreciate the input!